And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:10-11 ESV)
March Madness is upon us. While you’re filling out your bracket, let me fill you in on an important life lesson…
Believe it or not, in 5th grade, I played basketball. I was terrible, but I was still on the team. And I HATED it. I disliked it so much that my father forced me to quit halfway through the season because he was tired of my constant complaining about practice. My problem was my coach. Looking back, I see that Tim Baum was actually an excellent coach, I was just unwilling to be coached. You see, he expected us to continually improve. He was trying to instill discipline in us. I thought he was just mean.
One of Tim’s tactics, a common one really, was when we would run in the gym. He would say, “Just one more time.” Ok, Adam struggled but he made it one more time, knowing in his tired, lazy, little heart that after this one more time he could sit and rest. But NO. After our “one more time”, Coach would tell us again, “OK, one more time.” The audacity of a grown man to mislead an elementary student! These memories are locked in my brain.
And while Tim was hoping I’d catch on in basketball, I think I caught on to the secret in life. “Just one more” wasn’t mathematically correct. The point was for us to focus on what was right before us, not to lose hope, and to discipline our bodies and minds to keep going.
I feel that the first phrase of verse 10 comes from Tim Baum. “Suffered a little while” seems brief, a little hurdle to climb over, and then, boom, you’re good. While suffering is a part of the Christian life, some people would have you believe that it’s “just one more” and then it’s all good. Sometimes, maybe, but I don’t find that to be the experience of most followers of Jesus.
So was Peter lying to us? Did he and my coach get together to deceive? Not at all. You see, Peter was playing the long game, and so was my coach. In following Jesus, you may face hardship after hardship, trial after trial. But when you compare that to the riches of eternity with the Lord, well, it barely shows up as a blip.
I’ll admit that I’ve struggled with this, and not just in elementary basketball. Sometimes life just throughs a lot at you. Sometimes it’s the consequences of your own stupidity, and sometimes it’s just because we live in a messed up and broken world. But as God has matured me– a work still in progress, for certain– I have developed resiliency. It may be too late to go back and run line drills in 5th grade, but it’s not too late to remind myself today that I need to keep going, and that in Christ, I can keep going.
So today may seem like a rough day. You might find yourself in the midst of sorrow, anger, or just a state of confusion. I’m not going to deny that or ask you to pretend. I will encourage you, like Tim, like Peter, to keep going. Just one more. Because after we have suffered and pushed through the difficult season, the Lord will comfort, restore, strengthen, and establish you.
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Adam Will 